Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 May 25

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May 25

style of inference

If a music critic writes that Beethoven's piano concertos #1, #2, #3, and #5 were important compositions, one can infer that he or she considers concerto #4 to be unimportant. In purely logical terms the inference is unsound: the formal fallacy is called denying the consequent (I just spent a while finding that). But informally it's a legitimate device that has a name which I don't remember, but I think there's a Wikipedia article about it that I haven't been able to find. Does anyone know what it is called? Thanks. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 05:41, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Inference from omission? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:02, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

There's a similar principle of interpretation in law, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, which is that omission of something from a list of other specific things implies the exclussion of the omitted thing. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:14, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

In logic, this is a type of Abductive reasoning; which holds that a conclusion is consistent with a premise or group of premises (which is different from deductive reasoning, which demands that a conclusion is entailed by some premises). I think Sherlock Holmes said, of this type of reasoning, something along the lines of "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be truth" or some such. But the term "abduction" or "abductive reasoning" is the closest I can think to explain your situation. --Jayron32 12:40, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

• The best interpretation is context-specific. For example, if you say "concertos #1, 2, 3, and 5 were unimportant" and then I say "concertos #1, 2, 3, and 5 were important", the best interpretation is that I have implied nothing about #4. And subtleties of wording matter: if I say "concertos #1, 2, 3, and 5 were his important ones", the implication is that they are his only important ones. Loraof (talk) 14:43, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Beethoven also composed Piano Concertos #0, #6 and maybe not a #7. Before dismissing #4, a work is widely performed and recorded, and considered to be one of the central works of the piano concerto literature, on the non-word of a nameless critic, trust your own ears to a fine performance. Blooteuth (talk) 22:50, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks all, I think expressio unius est exclusio alterius might have been what I was thinking of, or anyway it's the closest. The Beethoven concerto sentence was just a made-up example of the construction, not something that any music critic (afaik) actually wrote. For what it's worth, the question was inspired by this sentence from the Missoulian newspaper yesterday, dis-endorsing a Congressional candidate who supposedly physically attacked a reporter:[1]

But there is no doubt that Gianforte committed an act of terrible judgment that, if it doesn’t land him in jail, also shouldn’t land him in the U.S. House of Representatives.

This leads to a (surely unintended but amusing) reading that the newspaper thought Gianforte should be elected to Congress only if he does also land in jail. (The election is now over and Gianforte won). 173.228.123.121 (talk) 06:17, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I'm plucking confused

Hi WP:RDH all,
I recently started a micro-stub about this fresco. I am teh fail about this period in English history.
Should the purported event be described as "plucking" or "choosing"?
Could you possibly help with this? TIA, Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:20, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I would say plucking - because that's what the main source that owns it says and it seems to have historical support. Also a quick check by Google seems to shows the two names have about equal support so one can't say choosing is the common name compared to plucking. Dmcq (talk) 11:15, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

It might be relevant to add a link somehow to the Wars of the Roses to add context (it wasn't just a gardening competition). That article says: "a number of noblemen and a lawyer pick red or white roses to show their loyalty to the Lancastrian or Yorkist faction". "Pluck" sounds a little stilted in modern English, to my ears anyway. Alansplodge (talk) 12:46, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Given that they have actually picked the blossoms from the bushes, it may be more accurate to use plucking rather than choosing, as it would be possible to choose without actually removing them. Today we are more likely to talk about picking flowers, rather than plucking them - but the reference is to Shakespeare (who may actually have invented the story), and he does use pluck (King Henry VI, Part I, ACT II, SCENE IV). Wymspen (talk) 14:01, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry misunderstood the question. For a description anything that describes what is supposed to be happening is fine. Dmcq (talk) 14:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

What title did its painter give to it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:26, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Shakespeare, in the source text for this scene, uses "pluck", not "choose". And if the Houses of Parliament - who presumably own the painting - use "pluck", that should be reason enough to stick with the title, I would think? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:40, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Famous Business Missed Deadlines

I'm compiling a list of well-known business failures and their agreed-upon causes: for example, New Coke is a well-known example (at least in popular culture) of a product that failed due to poor market research. However, I'm having trouble finding products that were primarily failures because they missed their posted/shipping deadlines: that is, they would likely have been successful, but delays in production or shipping caused them to lose market share, or failure to be successful at all. I'm trying to stick with products that are well-known to average people (i.e. if you you say "New Coke" to someone my age, they are going to to immediately think "business failure"), so I'm wanting to stay away from video games, movies, or other products that basically get in development hell. I've done some Google Searches on this, but haven't found any results other than "missed deadline metrics", or "what do we do when we know we are going to miss a deadline?". Any help is appreciated. OldTimeNESter (talk) 13:55, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

It sounds to me you don't have any source giving notability for the article otherwise that would have listed a few. Dmcq (talk) 14:07, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Apple had some well-publicized failures in the early 1980s, though I don't know if they were specifically because of missed deadlines; the Apple III and Apple Lisa both tanked hard, though the latter was later rolled into the Macintosh, which became Apples most successful product line. Several badly-designed video games, often rushed to market to meet deadlines (resulting in crappy products) are blamed in part for the North American video game crash of 1983, notably the games E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game) and Pac-Man (Atari 2600) are sometimes cited for their poor quality, though the latter was quite good selling, the Video Game market in general during the early 1980s suffered from under-supported design processes that often resulted in games that were pushed to market in incomplete states, the E.T. game is indicative of that, while Pac Man sold well, the game was blasted by critics for being a very poor port of the arcade version with bad graphics and clunky gameplay. Other product failures may include the Tucker 48 (which I don't think had delayed production issues) and the Hughes H-4 Hercules, which DID miss deadlines (a warplane intended for WWII which didn't fly until 1947) --Jayron32 14:18, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
• Boo.com Andy Dingley (talk) 18:01, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

It's lethal if you have the exclusive licence to print a calendar and you miss your deadline.That's where Antonio Lilio came unstuck Gregorian calendar#Adoption.213.104.60.230 (talk) 19:37, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I have removed my response which you moved here. I have no idea why you moved it as it was in the right section and makes no sense in this section as it's not an example of a missed deadline but an example of a deadline meet by producing the content sufficiently ahead of time. Nil Einne (talk) 02:29, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• The story of Gary Kildall and the first IBM PC OS was something like a missed deadline. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 06:10, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

How is Russia a developing country?

The Wikipedia page has a big picture, which colors in Russia as a developing country. Ironically, the Soviet Union was a superpower during the Cold War, which then collapsed. But the wealth can't just disappear, can it? How is Russia a developing country, less developed than China? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 15:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

According to Economy of the Soviet Union in 1989, the GDP per capita was only 32nd in the world. According to List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita, Russia ranks somewhere in the 60s, so yes, in terms of relative economic development, compared to the rest of the world, Russia has fallen behind compared to when it was the Soviet Union. However, if you're trying to understand the first map in the article titled Developing country, the sentence "There are no universally agreed-upon criteria for what makes a country developing versus developed and which countries fit these two categories" Being ranked, say, 65th out of 180is countries (roughly the middle third) is certainly on the line between developed and developing, and as there are many different organizations that use their own metrics, the one single organization who made the first map in that article used criteria whereby Russia is ranked as "developing". You'll notice in that same article, in a map lower down, Russia is ranked "High" on a different metric, which makes them in the second of five rankings by development. As has been mentioned before in other contexts, understanding what development is and how it is measured, and how Russia's economy works compared to other economies is more important than slapping a label on it. --Jayron32 16:59, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

The Soviet Union had a lot of natural resources, heavy industry, and military hardware, but I'm not sure it could be considered a "rich" country. The Soviets never fully solved the problems of agriculture that had been created or exacerbated by Stalin's collectivization, and part of why the Soviet Union collapsed was that it was probably spending more on its military than its economy could really afford. Much of what was monetizable in the Russian economy after the fall of the Soviet Union was siphoned off by the oligarchs in the second half of the 1990s... AnonMoos (talk) 15:57, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

See kleptocracy. Also, sanctions placed on them after they annexed Crimea and sent troops into the rest of Ukraine have had a major negative effect on their economy, as has low oil prices. StuRat (talk) 16:32, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Developing country doesn't say Russia is a developing country. It says IMF classifies Russia as a developing economy. Developing country#Definition says:

The IMF uses a flexible classification system that considers "(1) per capita income level, (2) export diversification—so oil exporters that have high per capita GDP would not make the advanced classification because around 70% of its exports are oil, and (3) degree of integration into the global financial system."

References

PrimeHunter (talk) 20:14, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, that's a rather uninteresting qualification: all definitions are created by someone for some purpose. If Russia is a developing country, that's only because some recognized authority has defined it as such (or defined its categories a certain way for which Russia happens to qualify as a developing country). If there were no recognized authority to establish such definitions, the concepts wouldn't exist in the first place. To draw such a distinction is meaningless because if the IMF (or another body with similar function as the IMF) wasn't creating definitions, we wouldn't have any such definitions in the first place! --Jayron32 13:51, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I have to disagree. While I can't speak for PrimeHunter, I think their point is important. There are multiple different ways of classifying countries development and multiple authorities who attempt to do so. If our article presented Russia as a developing country point blank as the OP's comment seem to imply, this would be a problem. However the good news is it doesn't. In fact it makes it clear it's only referring to the IMF's definition, and also gives this definition. Similarly the map makes clear it's referring to the IMF definition.

It also gives other definitions. For example: "Countries of Central Europe and of the Commonwealth of Independent States (code 172) in Europe are not included under either developed or developing regions". And "In the 2016 edition of its World Development Indicators, the World Bank made a decision to no longer distinguish between “developed” and “developing” countries in the presentation of its data. Nobody has ever agreed on a definition for these terms in the first place". And the map at the top using HDI in which Russia is coloured very high HDI which it also calls developed.

It's your choice if you only want pay attention to the IMF's definition, however others may be interested in recognising that it is only one definition and there are other definitions. (Looking more carefully, I note you made similar points in one of your posts above. So I'm not even sure why you now feel that being clear which definition is being referred to, what this definition is, and it was only this specific definition; is unimportant.) P.S. I didn't look carefully at the article so it may be Russia is said to be a developing country according to another definition it uses. If so, this would be a useful addition to the discussion, but it doesn't negate the important points that were made.

Nil Einne (talk) 04:57, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Why do humans homogenize over time?

All over the world, humans wear shirts and pants and dresses, even hunter-gatherer tribes. How do these hunter-gatherers get shirts and dresses in the first place? Do they trade with other human societies and clothes just happen to be on the list they trade for? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 15:47, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

See Westernization. --Jayron32 15:52, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

There's a whole industry, which has been written about several times in magazine articles that I've seen, which exports unsaleable donated second-hand clothes from first-world countries to third-world countries... AnonMoos (talk) 16:02, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

But in ancient times, China influenced the Far Eastern countries - food, values, written language. Apparently, this isn't just a modern phenomenon. It seems to happen whenever there is a dominant, powerful civilization and less developed peoples. 140.254.70.33 (talk) 16:14, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

In that case, the word you seek is hegemony, also possibly cultural hegemony or cultural imperialism. From a political science point of view, Soft power is also relevant, but that's a more deliberate, modern concept. --Jayron32 17:02, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree with AnonMoos. They can get Western clothes free, while traditional clothes take lots of work (or goods in trade) to afford. If the only way we could get Western clothes was to raise sheep, shear them, dye the wool, spin the wool into yarn, then knit what we need, but we could get saris and other foreign clothes for free, a lot of people here would wear those. StuRat (talk) 16:26, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think they quite get the clothing items for free in most cases, but certainly at a price far below what they would sell for in their original countries... AnonMoos (talk) 22:27, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

In China, native cloth was displaced by first Japanese and British, and later Indian, cloth in the late 19th century because imported cloth, made with Western technology, was cheaper and better quality. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:33, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

In India itself, the wearing of khadi or homespun cloth became a cause célèbre for Ghandi's Swadeshi movement. "If you are left with only one piece of homespun,wear it with dignity" was the slogan of a boycott of British-made cloth. Some decades later, the boot was on the other foot as cheap Indian textiles put the British cotton mills out of business. Alansplodge (talk) 18:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

One semi famous example is the shipping of SuperBowl (and I guess other sport championship) losing team shirts/jerseys produced before the final match was held in case they were the winners. [2]. Nil Einne (talk) 19:16, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I moved my reply back to this section after it was moved to a different section by an IP (where as I pointed out it made no sense). I should perhaps also mention I'm not intending to imply such items make up a significant proportion of clothing given away, it's likely to only be a tiny proportion. Also re-reading Anonmoos post, this is only a related example since these items aren't second-hand but are new. Note that there are concerns over the effect of second hand clothing from wealthier countries on the economies of poorer countries, see e.g. [3] [4]. (There are also similar concerns about other things, e.g. food aide.) Although as also clear from those sources, there is a vibrant economy around such things. Not clearly mentioned there but my memory is that many of the companies involved in exporting such clothes were founded by migrants from some of the countries where the trade happens. Also it's perhaps worth noting that as per AnonMoos and those sources and others like [5], these clothes despite being donated often aren't beign given away for free. (SuperBowl etc jerseys tend to be given away for free and I'm fairly sure there are other cases of new and old clothes being given away, it depends significantly on the target market, who's the one handling the clothes etc.) Nil Einne (talk) 03:09, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Frip Ethique is Oxfam's exporter. There was a recent Radio 4 programme about this. Also many of the clothes collected door-to-door by slightly dubious outfits that donate £X per tonne to charity Y end up in weaker economies. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:40, 29 May 2017 (UTC).

US Navy vs PLAN uniform

From a link[6] from a question above, this picture really stood out[7]. That looks like a PLA Navy officer greeting two US Navy officers, but their uniforms look almost identical. Not just the color and style of the shirts and pants, even down to minor details like the identical white color of the shoes and hats and the golden trim on the hats. Are the US Navy and PLAN uniforms really that similar? Or is it some kind of the ceremonial thing to "blend in" with the other party as a welcoming gesture? Scala Cats (talk) 18:07, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

It seems that naval uniforms are rather similar the world over. I found this image of Royal Australian Navy officers that have remarkably similar attributes. This image shows a different view of the same event in China, while this image shows that the most formal Chinese uniforms differ somewhat from the US formal ones, note the black tie, while the US version has a stand-up collar. Alansplodge (talk) 18:21, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Nitpick - that's not the most formal uniform, that's the general duty dress for the PLA Reserve - I think roughly requivalent to the no. 3 in the Royal Navy. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:28, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

That's kinda bizarre. I wonder which country started this trend? Was it the Royal Navy? Scala Cats (talk) 20:10, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

From our article Uniforms of the Royal Navy: "RN uniforms have served as the template for many maritime/naval uniforms throughout the world . . . ." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.60.183 (talk) 21:35, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

One more, this time British, US and Australian officers. Alansplodge (talk) 23:51, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

For those, like me, who are not up on such things, the PLA Navy is the People's Liberation Army Navy. I always just assumed it was called the Chinese Navy, but there you (or I) go. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:28, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I wonder if they have a Navy Army as well as an Army Navy? Alansplodge (talk) 23:53, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

That could make the recruitment advertisement jingle a mouthful: "People's Liberation Army! People's Liberation Army Navy! People's Liberation Army Air Force! People's Liberation Army Marines!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:47, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, they actually do have an Army Navy Air Force! Alansplodge (talk) 08:47, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

BB might want to get some ointment for that burn...DOR (HK) (talk) 07:53, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

List of manufacturers with emission scandals

Saw this[8] on the news today and it does not surprise me at all. There's been a string of investigations on car companies that it's getting hard to keep track of them all.

Googling "COMPANY NAME raided emission" got me Suzuki[9], Fiat Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz[10], Renault[11], Mitsubishi[12]. I'm sure there are plenty others.

Is there a reliably-sourced webpage (preferably on Wikipedia) that keeps track of all the car companies that's being investigated for emission cheating? Volkswagen emissions scandal is good, but it's mostly about Volkswagen; I'd like to get an industry-wide view. Scala Cats (talk) 20:21, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Keeping lists of entities under investigation would be counter to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, WP:CRYSTAL, and possibly WP:BLP. We don't normally list anything except actual convictions or settlements and fines. μηδείς (talk) 22:38, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

The Volkswagen emissions scandal article was started back in 2015[13], way before any "convictions or settlements and fines" happened, so what you wrote is blatantly false. Scala Cats (talk) 23:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Not really. It was a prominent news story, which made it notable enough for an article. And it has various categories which link it with other companies that have had some sort of scandal (which is probably most of them at one time or another). But there's no category called "car companies being investigated for emission cheating." A cat like that might well get deleted. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:56, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Ok, then, I'll restrict my question to non-Wikipedia websites. Scala Cats (talk) 05:50, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

You might want to inform the good people who wrote the Diesel emissions scandal article about their various rule violations then. Scala Cats (talk) 05:52, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

It's a very complicated question and whether the good people cheated or not in the end their cars'll do just the same. --Askedonty (talk) 08:25, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I think all the companies who make diesel cars are being investigated. I hope they are. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:37, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Unless I am mistaken, all diesel engines (not just cars) that are subject to emissions regulation and which do not require Diesel exhaust fluid are being investigated by several countries. I know of no diesel engines that require Diesel exhaust fluid that are being investigated.

Full disclosure: I designed one of the most commonly-used emissions-testing systems for automobiles and light trucks. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:50, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Nomads

In some countries, there are nomadic peoples and hunter-gatherer tribes. Are they considered citizens of the country in which they live? If a group of people continue to live the traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle and no one is bothering them and they just cope with parasites and high infant mortality like other animals do, then are they considered one massive undeveloped, moving "country" the size of whatever the land can sustain? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 21:08, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

See the articles Nomad and Hunter-gatherer that describe example groups. Blooteuth (talk) 22:30, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Groups "living the traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle" are confined to quite remote areas nowadays (generally those which are unsuitable for agriculture and/or hard to get to and/or climatically extreme). Most groups which are nomadic now or were nomadic in the recent past are actually animal-herders. In a number of countries, such nomadic animal herders have been subject to forced or semi-voluntary "sedentarization" for various reasons. (In the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, bedouin did not legally own most of the land they periodically made use of, which created problems in the Post-Ottoman era...) AnonMoos (talk) 22:45, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Some information at Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights by Jérémie Gilbert and Denotified and Nomadic Tribes: The Challenge of Free and Equal Citizenship by Rudolph C Heredia. Alansplodge (talk) 08:43, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Coincidentally (I assume since the OP doesn't seem to know anything) I read this story [14] about an African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights decision dealing with the eviction of hunter-gatherer Ogiek from their ancestral land in Kenya. Nil Einne (talk) 11:45, 27 May 2017 (UTC)